With recent marketing trends, it is becoming very popular for warehouse-type retail stores to sell a wide variety of items in bulk. This entails having a large container full of the loose product from which the customer selects the desired amount of the product.
Currently, the items are typically bought from the wholesaler in containers, and the retailer waits until a container currently on the display shelf is empty before replacing it with another full container. This can lead to certain disadvantages. If the container is sufficiently large, it can be awkward or difficult for the customer to not only see, but also to reach the last items in the container. This problem may necessitate that the retailer move these items nearer to the opening manually, wasting valuable employee time. There is thus a need for a way to move items toward the opening of the containers and to enable consumers to easily see into the containers.
The above mentioned problem is partially the result of the standardized shelving which is currently in common use in such retail stores. Such shelving is relatively inexpensive and convenient to use because of such standardization. However, a drawback is that such shelving is level from front to back. In many types of such shelving, each shelf rests upon a front crossbeam and a rear crossbeam, wherein each of the crossbeams is at substantially the same height, thus yielding a shelf which is substantially level.
Another drawback to the standardized shelving is that it typically has no convenient location where the retailer can post price and other information about the items displayed thereupon. There is thus a need for shelving which can provide such a price display position.
While several patents disclose devices which can be thought of as being composed of a bracket portion and a support portion, as in the instant invention, none disclose a device which contains all the features and advantages of the instant invention. The devices disclosed in Jensen U.S. Pat. No. 1,068,391 and Pavlo et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,873 both require multiple components to assemble. The devices disclosed in Bennett U.S. Pat. No. 1,220,717, Heine U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,175, Koistinen U.S. Pat. 4,418,496, Athey U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,095, and Jensen all involve hook-shaped support structures, and would thus not be appropriate for shelving which requires a support structure more nearly planar with each shelf. None of the patents cited above discloses a device of sufficient mechanical strength to support weight loads as great as does the instant invention.